Princeton gives highest awards to top undergraduate,
graduate students

PRINCETON, N.J. -- Princeton University recognized the winners of the
highest honors it awards to students at Alumni Day ceremonies Saturday,
Feb. 21.

Seniors Katherine Linder and Steven Porter received the University's
Moses Taylor Pyne Honor Prize, and graduate students Eric Brown, Min Hu,
William Ristenpart and Jennifer Waldron were honored as co-winners of
the Porter Ogden Jacobus Fellowship.

The Pyne Honor Prize, the highest general distinction conferred on an
undergraduate, is awarded to the senior who has most clearly manifested
excellent scholarship, strength of character and effective leadership.
The Jacobus Fellowship, which supports the final year of graduate study,
is awarded to students whose work has displayed the highest scholarly
excellence.

Pyne Prizes

Linder is concentrating in the history department and will earn a certificate
in contemporary European politics and society. In the fall, she will study
modern European history at Cambridge University. Eventually, she hopes
to earn a Ph.D. and to pursue a career in teaching, diplomatic service
or university administration.

Linder's professors describe her as unfailingly engaged, poised and attentive,
with a remarkable ability to synthesize complex primary source materials.
Awarded the Lawrence Stone Research Fellowship by the history department,
she traveled to England last summer to conduct research for her senior
thesis. Her project focuses on travel from England to France in the mid-19th
century, when the established mode of tourism -- the aristocratic, grand
tour of the continent -- was giving way to more democratized forms, accessible
to a new, middle-class market.

Linder spent the summer of 2002 in Paris, where she was an intern to
Ambassador Howard Leach. She won both the Ambassador Jack Irwin Award
and the Pamela Harriman Foreign Service Award. She also has served as
an intern for the Business Council for the United Nations, where she helped
implement a lung cancer prevention program for developing nations that
links the United Nations to key U.S. cancer centers.

At Princeton, Linder has served as an officer in the Princeton Model
Congress and as UNICEF chair of the Model United Nations. She also is
the chair of Orange Key, the student group that provides tours for visitors
to campus. A graduate of St. Francis High School, she is the daughter
of Mark and Mary Linder of Sacramento, Calif.

At the awards ceremony, Princeton President Shirley M. Tilghman paid
tribute to Linder "for the gusto with which you unhesitatingly tackle
daunting academic challenges; for the mark you will leave on Princeton
after you receive your diploma; and for the embodiment of Woodrow Wilson's
ideal -- 'Princeton in the Nation's Service.'"

Porter is an anthropology major, specializing in the study of medical
anthropology. He is recognized by his department for his exceptional intellectual
acumen and academic performance and for his critical engagement with health
issues in the developing world. After graduation, he hopes to work with
a nongovernmental organization or nonprofit specializing in reproductive
health and HIV/AIDS epidemiology. Eventually, he plans to attend medical
school and possibly to pursue a joint degree in public health or medical
anthropology.

Porter was awarded the Shapiro Prize for Academic Excellence in fall
2002 and received major funding from the George Shultz '42 Fund, the Office
of the Dean of the College and the Woodrow Wilson School to pursue summer
thesis research. In the spring of his sophomore year, Porter studied at
the University of Cape Town in South Africa. He returned there last summer
to work on his thesis, which explores the ways in which traditional medicine
is being integrated into the national health policy of South Africa, specifically
with respect to the control of HIV/AIDS.

The vice president of Princeton's Student Health Advisory Board, Porter
serves as a liaison between the University Health Services staff and the
student body. He is a member of the Student Global AIDS Campaign, a national
alliance of student activists who work to raise AIDS awareness and promote
AIDS advocacy, and he spent the summer of 2002 as a volunteer for the
campaign's Cambridge, Mass., chapter.

Porter is a member of the Tigertones, an a cappella group, and Bodyhype,
Princeton's jazz/hip-hop/modern dance company. A graduate of Deerfield
Academy, he is the son of Steven, a member of Princeton's class of 1973,
and Melinda Porter of Albany, N.Y.

During the ceremony, Tilghman thanked Porter "for your blend of
intellectual curiosity and sophisticated analytical abilities; for your
commitment to healing and to social science; and for your extremely energetic
engagement in work that touches the lives of others."

Jacobus Fellowships

Brown is a doctoral student in the Program in Applied and Computational
Mathematics. He earned his bachelor's degree in engineering physics from
the University of California-Berkeley. His broad interests in mathematics,
biology and chemistry have led to his study of mathematical neuroscience.
His dissertation focuses on mathematical models for the mechanisms of
cognitive control. "Eric is fascinated by the question of how neurons
collectively generate behavior," said Brown's co-adviser Philip Holmes,
professor in the Program in Applied and Computational Mathematics and
in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. "He has
the mathematical range and depth and the collaborative skills needed to
answer it. I am privileged to work with him."

Brown has excelled at working collaboratively with faculty members, postdoctoral
researchers and other students from the Program in Applied and Computational
Mathematics and the Center for the Study of Brain, Mind and Behavior.
Jonathan Cohen, professor of psychology, director of the center and Brown's
co-adviser on the project, said, "The results provide the first direct
theoretical connection between longstanding mathematical theories regarding
human behavioral performance and more recent neural network models and
neuropsychological data regarding the brain mechanisms that give rise
to performance."

Hu is pursuing a doctoral degree in chemistry. She earned her bachelor's
degree in chemistry from Fudan University in China. She has a strong interest
in the interdisciplinary field between chemistry and biology. Her dissertation
research, which is centered on fighting cancer, deals with p53, the most
important tumor suppressor known.

Yigong Shi, professor of molecular biology and Hu's dissertation adviser,
noted that two of her papers already have been published in leading biological
research journals. "There is no question that her research will have
a fundamental impact on other researchers in her area of study,"
said Andrew Bocarsly, professor and director of graduate studies in the
chemistry department.

Ristenpart is working on a doctoral degree in chemical engineering. He
earned his bachelor's degree in the same field from the University of
California-Davis. His research has concentrated on a branch of fluid mechanics
where the flow is generated by an applied electrical field. In his dissertation,
he seeks to establish "electric-field induced colloidal crystallization,"
a fast and inexpensive procedure that could improve the fabrication of
nanoscale devices.

"Bill is highly motivated to do the very best scientifically,"
said Ilhan Aksay, professor of chemical engineering, who is his adviser
along with Dudley Saville, the Stephen C. MacAleer '63 Professor of Engineering
and Applied Science. "His attitude is always positive, and the more
he is challenged the greater he strives to be more rigorous." Aksay
also praised Ristenpart's efforts to mentor undergraduate students.

Waldron is completing a doctoral degree in English. She earned a bachelor's
degree in comparative literature from Oberlin College, then taught English
literature at a high school in New York City. After receiving a master's
degree in English literature from New York University, she enrolled at
Princeton to study early modern literature. Her dissertation re-examines
the cultural impact of the English public theater in light of Protestant
Reformation debates over the sacramental and symbolic powers of the human
body.

The project is an outgrowth of an article she published in Critical Matrix:
The Princeton Journal of Women, Gender and Culture, which she also co-edited
for two years. In addition, she organized the Princeton Renaissance Colloquium
for two years and has held fellowships from the University Center for
Human Values and the Center for the Study of Religion. "Jennifer's
combination of remarkable poise, professionalism, originality, enthusiasm
and ability is unmatched in my experience," said Oliver Arnold, associate
professor of English, who is her dissertation adviser along with colleagues
Leonard Barkan and Nigel Smith. "She is, put simply and briefly,
absolutely outstanding in every sense," Smith said.